This ship was built as the Persia for the Hamburg America
Line's service to New York. She was bought by the Atlantic Transport Line in
1897 because she was "practically a sister" to the Massachusetts class
of ships. She was renamed Minnewaska (which means clear water)
and employed on the Atlantic Transport Line's New York service. She is recorded
in the Morton Allan Directory of European
Passenger Steamship Arrivals making just three voyages between March
and May 1898. In that same year of 1898 Country
Life
published a brief article about the Atlantic Transport Line's new stables
at the Albert Docks, which also describes a luncheon given on board the Minnewaska
and a tour of her accommodation for horses.

The Minnewaska was one of six Atlantic Transport Line ships
bought by the U.S. government for service as transports during the Spanish-American
War. She was purchased on July 26, 1898 for $660,000. In June 1898, immediately
before her sale, Minnewaska was under the command of Captain
Richard Griffiths, commodore of the line.

The Minnewaska was ready to sail when the sales were agreed
and was permitted to make her voyage before she was handed over. Her conversion
to a transport was not completed in time for her to serve during the war, but
she was retained afterwards for the new Army transport service. She was refitted
for this long-term role, was renamed Thomas after General George Henry
Thomas, a hero of the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga, and allocated to the
Pacific fleet.

The Thomas could accommodate 100 officers, 1,200 men
and 1,000 horses as well as a large amount of cargo including refrigerated meat.
She was soon employed on the regular service connecting San Francisco with Manila.
At this time vessels going to and from the Philippines made a point of stopping
and raising the American flag on Wake Island before it was formally annexed
by the United States in 1899. One of these, in July 1898, was the Thomas.
The Peace Corps tradition was arguably started by the Thomasites,
a group of educators who got their name from the Thomas. This ship
brought the first batch of 540 American teachers and some of their family members
to initiate a new era of public education in the Philippines in August 1901.

On October 12, 1922, a fire broke out on board the Los Angeles
Steamship Company liner City of Honolulu about 600 miles from
California. Captain Lester gave the order to abandon ship at 8 a.m. The disaster
was dubbed "ship wreck de luxe" because the ship's orchestra played
jazz as passengers were loaded into the boats, which the chief steward had provisioned
with roast chicken, delicacies from the galley, and copious supplies of drink
and cigarettes. The passengers and crew were picked up by a freighter, but as
it had no accommodation for them they were all transferred to the Thomas
when she arrived at the scene. The Thomas was heading for San Francisco,
but Harry Chandler, the owner of the line, had her diverted to Los Angeles to
avoid the waiting newspaper reporters and avert a media disaster.

The Thomas made several trips to the orient from New
York via the Panama Canal, but was used mainly on the Manila run, stopping at
Honolulu and Guam on the westward trip, and Nagasaki and Chinwantago in China
on the return voyage. She was the last of the more than 50 transports acquired
by the U.S. government in 1898 to remain in service and was eventually sold
for scrap in July 1928.

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